Chapter 23

Amber made her way home from Damien's house, still feeling high but at least able to walk in a straight trajectory. As she ambled down the tree-lined avenue, the row of red maples seemed to stretch on forever.

She was still laughing at the episode of South Park Damien had played her—the one with the alternative kids. It was his favorite.

'Damien is so much cooler than I ever realized,' Amber thought. She pictured his face, his face, his outfit, and felt ashamed of her attraction to him.

'I'm supposed to be devoted to Greg,' she sighed, but when she pictured Greg it filled her with nothing but foreboding. She desperately wanted him to like her—to value her—but it didn't seem achievable.

As she neared her house a text from Greg appeared. Instead of skipping with its usual flutter, her heart darkened with dread.

"You don't have to go to him," she mumbled out loud, but it was a lie. She did have to go. After piling so much emotional investment into Greg, she couldn't pull herself away. Her mind conjured her image of 'octopus girl,' trying desperately to pull the things tentacles from her face.

He'd summoned, so she would appear.

Ruby was nowhere to be seen as she let herself into the house through the back door. She desperately wanted to bump into her, just to tell her about recent developments and get her input, advice, support, or anything she had to offer.

As she approached Greg's room, she felt a mixture of fear and excitement, wondering what he would have her do and what mood he would be in. She had the feeling he was displeased with her, and though she didn't understand what she'd done, she felt it was probably justified.

She knocked and entered to find him sitting at his computer as usual. He was most often online if he was in his room, streaming or talking to his friends.

He didn't look up when she entered, just uttered, "Come here and suck me off."

Nothing about this surprised her other than her reaction. She didn't feel like jumping up and down at the privilege of having his cock in her mouth. He'd blow his load and tell her to get lost without even acknowledging her.

She got to her knees and pulled his dick from his pants, surprised to see it was already fully hard and glistening with precum.

'Has he been watching porn or what?' she wondered.

It didn't take more than a few minutes to bring him to orgasm, leaving her to wonder why he couldn't have just had a wank and saved her the effort. Did he love filling her mouth with his seed that much?

He sneered down at her as she grimaced, downing the bitter liquid.

"Stay there," he said. "When I get hard again, I'm going to make you go for round two."

Amber didn't want to. She didn't want to because she wasn't in the mood, had a million things on her mind and just wanted to be with Ruby or her Mum or anyone who cared.

'Damien,' she thought.

"So, I guess you think you were pretty smart, flirting with Damien to make me jealous," he said.

Amber almost protested that she wasn't. That she genuinely wanted to talk to Damien, and it had nothing to do with him. This would only make him angry.

"I'm sorry," she muttered. "I was jealous of you talking to Erin."

It was the truth. She had been jealous. Jealous of the fact she did anything and everything for him and he couldn't bring himself to have a civil conversation with her at school, whereas Erin did nothing, and he fawned over her.

Okay... so fawned might be a drastic overreaction. Still, it had hurt her feelings.

"You should say sorry to Damien. Message him right now and say you are sorry that you only talked to him to make me jealous," he demanded.

Her fingers danced slowly over her screen, typing the words as if in slow motion. She didn't want to hit send and make Damien hate her again.

'He just wants to make sure no other guys want me,' Amber thought. It gave her a little bit of hope that he was jealous, but she didn't want to lose Damien. He was the person she least expected to become attached to, but he had been so kind to her.

The color drained from the world as she hit send, turning everything to a dingy shade of grey.

When he replied, "Hah, silly girl," she felt a little better.

Greg frowned as he grabbed her phone to read the response.

Then another message appeared: "I'm having a party tonight. Adrienne wants me to invite you so it's less of a sausage fest."

He added a load of those cry-laughing emojis.

"How come he didn't tell me he was having a party?" Greg asked, sounding outraged.

"I don't know," Amber said and shrugged.

Greg snatched her phone from her hand and rang Damien, challenging him on his invite choices. She could overhear Damien explain he wasn't inviting people from school, but that one of his non-school friends had met Amber and liked her.

"So, you're trying to set up my girl with another mate of yours?" Greg asked.

The anger dissipated from his face as Damien explained it was a female friend and nothing sexual. He went on to invite Greg and said he would also the others.

"You wanna go invite Ruby?" Greg asked her as he hung up. "She hates me."

Amber nodded, happy to be relieved of her duties. She found Ruby sitting on the floor with her back to the radiator, crying her little heart out.

"Oh, Babes?" she asked. "What's happened?"

She took a seat beside her friend, wondering why the radiator was turned on when the day was so hot. She felt her back becoming red as she leaned back, draping an arm over her friend's shoulder.

Ruby explained the situation, how Greg had found out about her secret meeting with Lucas and banned him from seeing her again. She screwed up her pretty face as she admonished him, calling him an evil sadistic prick.

"You think I'm the sadistic one?" Greg asked, appearing from the doorway. Amber had no idea he'd been standing there but was glad she hadn't joined in with the name slinging.

"Watch this," Greg said, passing his phone to Ruby.

A video played showing Lucas punching a random guy in the face. Once the guy was on the ground Lucas pinned him to the floor and rained down punches with his fists and even his elbows. The guy was crying, tears and snot streaming down his face as he begged Lucas to stop.

Lucas didn't stop. He laughed as he continued to hit the guy's face, beating him until his face was bloody and swollen even after he'd passed out and his head flopped limply against the pavement.

Watching it made Amber feel sick. She could feel the punches as if it were her on the floor and had to look away.

As Lucas stood in the video, she assumed that was the end of it, but Lucas whipped out his dick and urinated on the guys bloody, messed-up face.

As the screen went black Greg snatched the phone back.

"Still think he's some great guy?" he asked. "This is what he does for kicks."

Ruby stopped crying and wiped her cheeks, looking up at Greg with a mixture of remorse and sadness.

"You girls might want to get dressed," he said. "We have a party to get to."

###

Amber felt a tingle of joy when she arrived at the party and Adrienne hugged her. Adrienne was the epitome of cool—badass and beautiful. She introduced Ruby and Greg, noticing how Greg's eyes almost fell out of his head at the sight of her. She was probably his idea of the perfect woman.

They followed the tall goth girl into the kitchen where the drinks were laid out.

"I don't want to drink alcohol," Greg said. "Make me tea."

Without warning, Adrienne grabbed him by his arm, inspecting one before doing the same to the other.

"They don't seem broken to me," she said. "Make your own tea."

"I wasn't asking you," he said, curling up his lip.

"You weren't asking anyone," Adrienne shot back. She grabbed a couple of beers in one hand and Amber in the other, leading her into the living room while loudly asking Damien to have a word with his 'dickhead mate.'

Amber felt guilty and worried as Damien took Greg to one side but began to feel better as the warmth of beer spread from her belly, numbing her extremities.

Greg didn't speak to her for the rest of the night. He went out of his way not to engage her as if to make a point of it. Punishing her for their refusal to accept his behavior.

She still enjoyed the party. The group smoked more weed, drank beer, listened to music, and played card games she never knew existed. Weirdly, Ruby won every single game, even the ones she claimed to have never played before. They joked she was some kind of card savant.

When they talked Damien into playing his guitar, he insisted on playing the song he'd downloaded for her, telling her she had to sing the lyrics.

"I can't sing," Amber cried. Showcasing her awful singing in front of this lot would require substantially more beer.

"You have to," Damien insisted, grinning at her.

Butterflies took flight in her belly as she shook her head and made puppy dog eyes, trying to beg out of it.

"Hah." Greg tutted. "So, he can order her about and that's fine? Nice to see the double standards."

He'd been nitpicking at Adrienne all night, and Amber could tell this was the last straw.

"You wanna know why?" she asked, getting up close in his face.

"Yeah," he said, pushing his face into hers.

"Because Damien is a God among men and you are a sad little boy with a God complex," she said.

Greg made a scoffing sound and shook his head before looking her in the eyes. "It must suck so bad to be a fully grown woman in love with a schoolboy."

"I'm like... three years older," she scoffed, shaking her head. "And I'm n-not... I'm not in love with him."

"Can you play Hailie Sellasse, up your ass?" Amber shouted, just to break the weird tension.

"Rastafari," Damien said in a Jamaican accent and nodded, picking up his guitar. Plugged into the amp, it was loud, but the detached house wasn't close enough to any others cause a noise disturbance.

She sang along, remembering the simple lyrics with ease; it was a lot of f-words and bashing of religion. Repeating the words, 'Fuck religion,' she couldn't help but feel a little guilty since her Mum still took her to church one Sunday a month. She would help with a group called 'Messy Church,' where her little brother and neighborhood kids made crafts and had lunch.

She claimed to hate it to all her friends, but secretly she loved it.

'Sorry Jesus,' she thought, hoping he would forgive her. She didn't listen to a lot of the 'God bod' stuff her Mum jabbered on about, but she knew Jesus was big on forgiveness.

When her song was done the others cheered and she sat, watching Damien do a guitar solo. There was something sexy about the way he played the guitar, resting it on his hip, and the way his fingers moved skillfully along the frets.

She realized she was sitting on the edge of her seat, smiling up at him like some crazed fangirl. Then she realized Greg had noticed and tried to rein herself in a tad. As Greg watched Damien then glanced back at her, he must have noticed their matching gloves because his eyes were beaming a hole into her wrist.

'It doesn't mean anything,' Amber thought, yet as she looked down at the stripy little glove, she didn't want to take it off. For reasons she couldn't explain, it made her feel safe.